Yearning For God

(Note:  For some reason, yesterday's slice did not make it to our tables; look for it below this slice as today 's bonus.)

Luke 13: 31-35

Jesus’ Sorrow for Jerusalem

³¹ At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”

³² He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ ³³ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

³⁴ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁵ Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

With his own life threatened, Jesus continues to focus on his mission, and we hear him express his longing to gather the people of Israel, the chosen people, and lift them to the next level graphically expressed in the timeless image of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. No wonder he wept for Jerusalem and all of us who ignore or refuse his loving invitation. Most of us have experienced some form of this rejection and know the pain that Jesus felt to some degree. Being God, he must have felt it ever more keenly, yet he continues to yearn for us.  Many of the Jews escaped his loving embrace, but those who accepted it found a joy and happiness that even martyrdom could not erase, and, indeed, even enhanced their elation.

How are we responding to the invitation to come under the loving wings of Jesus?  To allow his love to transform us fully into the persons God created us to be?  We might think "we've made it," but evidently there's MORE, SO MUCH MORE! Why do we hesitate, why do we fear?  Let us pray for the humility to allow Jesus to have his way with us, trusting that he wishes no harm, but GOOD beyond our wildest imagination.

Bro. Rene